The sale and distribution of any bulk material requires coordination between various participants, including buyers, sellers, transporters, etc. For example, distribution scheduling practice within the oil industry typically involves several participants and many steps. Traders make deals with buyers and sellers which result in purchase contracts and sales contracts, respectively. Freight contracts may also be in place between transporters, buyers and sellers. These various contracts may be captured on paper at a minimum, and, at best, memorialized within a computer-based contracts system. Additionally, purchase and sales contracts may be summarized in purchase and sales listings, respectively, identifying the essentials of each contract, such as partner name, location(s), material, quantities, dates, etc. Schedulers use these purchase and sales listings, combined with their own knowledge of potentially available transportation facilities, to attempt to build nominations, also known as voyages, directly on a one-by-one basis. The schedule of nominations is typically built using a simple spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft® Excel®, for example.
It is not unusual practice for the scheduler to manually enter the schedule of nominations into a second computer system, such as a mainframe, legacy system, messaging system, etc., for communication to all the relevant participants. Unfortunately, even though freight contacts may already be in place between the transporter, buyer and seller, the scheduler typically does not have access to electronic freight contract data, and, consequently, may need to manually enter freight information into the schedule of nominations based on his own personal knowledge or, if available, hardcopy printouts of freight contacts. Furthermore, the scheduler usually does not have an overview of the usage of the sales, purchase or freight contracts to date, other than information reflected by his own personal records. While participants may provide updated usage information related to sales, purchase or freight contracts, the scheduler typically reflects these updates only within the schedule of nominations at best, and not, for example, within the second computer system.